A trip to the zoo

Mom and I went to the zoo yesterday. We took my friend's 5 year old and our step-daughter-in-law went with her two year old.  Mom has been wanting to see the new baby elephant we have and just last month a new giraffe was born so we got to see that, too. She was so excited to go and she got ready in record time. She wore jeans, a turtle neck and a denim shirt over that. Before we left I had to hide her winter coat and hats. (She had them laid out like she was going to wear them). It was 88 yesterday at the zoo. As much as she loved it, she accused me of trying to kill her between animal displays. She shed the denim shirt right away and she sweat like crazy the rest of the day. At one point she just went on strike. We were headed to the dolphin show and she just plopped down on a bench on the way there and said, "I'm sitting here!" And boy, did she look mad for a minute. She did that several times throughout the day and our zoo is really not very big. But the animals were a big hit. She loved the elephants and assured everyone that they didn't have elephants where she was from. We took the kids to the petting zoo and she marveled that she had never been in a zoo where there were chickens. lol. Instead of explaining to her that we were in the petting zoo part of the zoo, I just said, "Only in Indiana." And she laughed and laughed at that.

She loved the dolphin show and all the rest. We were getting ready to leave and Dalton, the 5 year old, wanted to see the snakes. On the way thre, Mom plopped down on a bench and said she was done. Emily and I decided to leave her on that bench and go in the snake display with the kids...we figured she was too worn out to go anywhere. But the longer we were separated from her the more worried I got. I kept thinking I could see the news headlines the next day in the paper..."Alzheimer's patient lost. Woman leaves elderly Mother alone on park bench." Emily just laughed at me and reminded me how worn out she was, but it didn't help and I was a nervous wreck. We were probably only separated for 10 minutes and by the time we left the snakes, I was practically running back to the bench. Of course, there she was, right where we left her and she got a good rest but she was ready to go home!